KNOTTINGLEY PUBLIC HOUSES & BREWERIES
circa. 1750 – 1998
by TERRY SPENCER B.A.(Hons), Ph D. (1998)
CHAPTER SIX
SECONDARY OCCUPATIONS
The
passing of the Wellington Act prompted a number of Knottingley residents
to seek to obtain a second source of income by becoming beerhouse
proprietors. Economic duality had, however, been a discernable feature
amongst the towns publicans long before the 1830 enactment and remained so
throughout the remainder of the century despite a gradual tendency towards
diminishment. In many cases recourse to a second form of employment was an
economic necessity, notwithstanding the demographic changes within the
local community which had resulted in the establishment of so many public
houses. The fact did not auger well for the financial aspirations of the
newly sprung beerhouse proprietors following the legislation of 1830. The
hopes and aspirations of the new vendors is seen in the rapid increase in
the number of such establishments in the decade following the Act whilst
the economic reality is evident from their swift decline in the ensuing
decade.
Many
of the secondary occupations followed by the towns publicans were
associated with the production of food or the materials and services
arising from the demands of a semi-rural economy. Farmer and craftsman are
commonly found amongst the occupations followed by licensed victuallers,
particularly in the pre-industrial era. Thus, Thomas Gaggs was designated
as a farmer seeking official status as a licensed victualler in 1771 and
seven years later no less than a quarter of the licensed victuallers in
the town were listed as farmers. (1)
The
reason is not difficult to find, for in an age when even people of
fairly modest means occupied houses set amidst several perches of
land it is unsurprising that many practised animal husbandry and
cultivated both their adjacent holdings and their allotments in
the common fields.
Nor
is it surprising that these smallholders, together with tradesmen
with abundant space plus a little surplus capital should utilise
both as a means of supplemental income by setting up as licensed
victuallers as the development of the maritime trade and the
limestone industry created consumer demand for such services.
Smallholdings
were particularly suited to conversion as alehouses, having a brewhouse
and accompanying stables and outbuildings which readily lent themselves to
such utility. Where such premises occupied a peripheral location, such as
that of the Red Lion and the Bay Horse, lying respectively at the eastern
and western extremities of the town, their relatively isolated situation
often ensured that they enjoyed less estrictive control by the local
authorities. (2) In this context, it is worth digressing to mention Park
Balk Farm which occupies a site on the southern edge of Knottingley at the
top of Womersley Road, the farmhouse of which it is claimed, was used as a
public house in the eighteenth century. Whilst it is undeniable that the
location of the farm was eminently suited to such use, and allowing for
the fact that oral tradition based upon folk memory usually has some basis
in fact, the claim is, however, one which as yet awaits documentary
verification. Nevertheless, the possibility provides an example of the
genesis of early day inns as well as the transient nature and subsequent
demise of a few. Indeed, the history of the Bay Horse illustrates such
economic opportunism, the owner of this inn having abandoned cultivation
of the surrounding farmland in order to extract the limestone beneath, and
turned his premnises into an inn to cater for the passing trade. It is no
coincidence that the licensee, Joseph Taylor, was simultaneously recorded
as farmer, limeburner and publican. (3) Similarly, Edward Spenc, owner and
licensee of the John Bull, was also designated as a lime burner. (4)
There
were two distinct categories of public house ownership. In the first case
were men of substantial wealth for whom the ownership of licensed premises
represented an investment of money accumulated in other spheres of
business. William Moorhouse, Thomas Shillito, Richard Dickson Askham and
Spence himself, were lime merchants. William Earnshaw and John Austwick
were master mariners. Samuel Atkinson was a rope maker, Robert Coward a
maltster and George Greenhow a chemist and druggist. All representitive of
the ‘investment’ group. Amongst the owner/occupiers however, it is
difficult to discern the extent to which the profession of publican
represented an opportunity for the investment of surplus capital in order
to supplement primary source income and the circumstances in which the
adoption of a second occupation arose of necessity from the failure to
obtain an adequate income as a publican.
John
Curtis of the Commercial Inn was a farmer throughout most of his
occupation of the inn and was succeeded by his son William, as both
publican and farmer in 1893. (5) Shortly before his death Curtis held 57
acres of land and in addition to his sons, William and Robert, both of
whom are recorded as farmers, employed another man and two boys to tend
his holding. (6) However, it is of passing interest to note that in 1841,
prior to his becoming a publican and at a time when the passenger coach
service was not yet under threat from the railway, John Curtis was stated
to be a coach proprietor, living under the roof of William Gandy, landlord
of the Ropers Arms. (7) Even as late as 1851, by which time Curtis had
become licensee of the Commercial Inn and the coaching trade was in
terminal decline, Curtis employed six servants solely for posting duties.
(8) The indications are that Curtis adopted the occupation of license
victualler in order to expand and supplement his existing profession but
that following the diminishment and ultimate demise of the coach trade,
with its accompanying decline in the business of the inn, he was compelled
to seek a secondary source of income and chose agriculture as a
replacement for the defunct coaching business.
A
similar multiplicity of occupations was followed by William Smithson of
the Duke of York Inn who throughout the early decades of the nineteenth
century combined being a publican with the manufacture of bricks and tiles
whilst simultaneously conducting the trade of ironfounder. (9) Smithson
appears to have eventually concentrated on one sphere of occupational
activity, for in 1854 he was living at Pontefract, being in business as a
brick and tile maker, which may be an indication that in his case the role
of publican was secondary to that of manufacturer. (10) Several other
victuallers followed occupations connected with the building trade. John
Fenton of the Swan Inn was also a brick and tile maker although it is
unclear whether he was Smithson’s successor. (11) Joseph Brown at the
Cherry Tree around mid century, was a builder (12) as was John Bacon who
kept the same premises a little earlier, (13) whilst William Myers
licensee of the Royal Oak, from the late fifties, followed the craft of
stonemason. (14) Samuel; Astbury, licensee of the Royal Oak by 1881, was a
potter, (15) as was George Thursby of the Potter’s Arms a decade later.
(16) William Holmes of the Aire Street Hotel supplemented his income as a
hairdresser (17) whilst a few decades earlier, John Pease, trading from
unnamed premises in Back Lane (probably the Blue Bell Inn) had been a
saddler. (18)
Several
innkeepers had commercial or trade connections over the years. The trade
of joiner was followed by Joseph Beaumont of the Boat Inn. (19) John
Hartley of the Anchor was a shoemaker (20) and John Atkinson of the
Sportsman’s Inn was a butcher, (21) an occupation later followed by
William Earnshaw Wright of the Red Lion. (22) Likewise, it seems probable
that the trade of butcher was followed by Richard Hill, presumptive
landlord of the Three Horse Shoes Inn. (23) Earlier, Mark Stillings had
traded as a glazier from the Red Lion premises (24) and continued to
follow this occupation from the same site after relinquishing his tenancy
of the inn in 1857. (25) Thomas Tasker, tenant of the Ropers Arms in 1861,
was a ship’s blockmaker. (26) The occupation of publican was an ideal
one for those engaged in the hiring of horse-drawn vehicles. Prior to John
Curtis taking the Commercial Inn the premise had been in the keeping of
Joseph Hill, who like Curtis, was a coach proprietor. (27) A similar line
of business was undertaken at the other end of the century and from a
venue at the other end of town, by Edward Watson of the Railway Hotel, who
hired out a wide range of vehicles, wagonettes, carts, landaus, cabs,
traps, etc.. The business was continued by one of Watson’s successors,
Hawley Harris, during his tenancy of the hotel between 1904-18. (28) John
Shay, occupant of the Wagon & Horses between 1857-80, was also a
market gardener and shopkeeper, and the latter occupation was also
followed by Shay’s contemporary, William Dixon of the Potter’s Arms.
(29)
The
two principal types of occupation followed by early victuallers in
Knottingley were those of vessel builder and blacksmith. The former group
were prominent from the last quarter of the eighteenth century having to
some extent ‘usurped’ the role formerly occupied by the small farmers,
but fading from the victualling scene by the third quarter of the
nineteenth century so that by the time of the Census of 1881, only the
long retired, 73 year old, George Burton, was left of the old fraternity.
(30) Various documentary sources covering the period 1821-1900 reveal a
score of different secondary occupations which were followed by almost
double that number of the towns publicans. The fragmentory nature of the
data sources suggests, however, that the list is far from complete.
The
extent to which the wealthier denizens of the town were actively engaged
in the ownership of licensed premises is unclear. In the case of the
common brewers it is obvious that the acquisition of such properties was
undertaken in order to obtain retail outlets. The position of George
Greenhow, a local chemist, who by 1860 was the owner of the Limesto0ne Inn
and the Aire Street Hotel, is less apparent. (31) There are indications
that Greenhow’s ownership may have been incidental, forming part of the
wholesale purchase of property by Greenhow who may have obtained the
licensed premises with sitting tenants a part and parcel of his general
acquisition. (32) However, there is some suggestion that Greenhow may have
had a direct involvement in the administration of the Aire Street Hotel
for he is named in the 1860s as a wine and spirit merchant and an agent
for Dublin Stout and Burton manufactured and less prestigious ales.
Greenhow’s varied activities appear to have combined his dual profession
as chemist and victualler as indicated by his appointment as the exclusive
agent for Lawe’s Patent Manures. (33)
Other
non-residential owners of licensed property at that period include Robert
Coward, who was the proprietor of an extensive maltings lying between the
canalside and Liquorice Lane at Fernley Green. Coward’s holding included
a beerhouse the undertenant of which was William Womack. (34) Likewise,
another property, the owner of which was William Moorhouse, was an unnamed
beerhouse at Hill Top. Again, it would appear that the existence of
licensed premises in properties belonging to Coward and Moorhouse is
incidental and does not represent any direct financial investment on their
part in the establishment of the same. It is perhaps significant that in
both cases the premises are unnamed beerhouses rather than fully licensed
public houses, suggesting that their occupiers may have been opportunists
taking advantage of a perceived opportunity afforded by the 1830 Act to
convert their rented domestic residences into beerhouses and to this end
seeking, and obtaining the tacit approval of their landlords, in the same
way that a generation earlier William Butler had acceded to William Taylor’s
establishment of the Rising Sun Inn. This probability is given added irony
in the case of William Moorhouse who was a local J.P. and as such likely
to be opposed to the granting of beerhouse licences. It may be no
coincidence that a marginal note by a later hand in the town’s 1857 Rate
Book has inserted the words"This
[property] now converted into two cottages & a stable." (35)However,
a caveat must be inserted in respect of the foundation of the Royal Albert
Hotel, the establishment of which was Moorhouse’s responsibility.
A
further privately owned property, that belonging to Jane Jackson, was the
beerhouse established by John Fell as an adjunct to his smithy and later
known as the Anvil Inn. (36) Here again, the same circumstances apply,
with no direct involvement by the owner in the establishment and
functioning of the beerhouse, its genesis being solely due to a perceived
opportunity to engender secondary income on the part of the tenant.
Similarly, at a slightly later date, the Boat Inn, although belonging to
John Raddings, operated under the auspices of the licensee, John Hargraves,
not as a direct financial investment on the part of the owner.
From
the foregoing summary it is apparent that inns under private ownership but
having undertenants as licensees were not regarded as anything more than
incidental sources of income by their owners, much less as assets which
provided maximum financial return for minimal capital investment. Indeed,
extant evidence, although somewhat superficial, suggests that for some
owner-occupiers and an even greater number of licensed sub-tenants, an
alternative occupation was essential to ensure an adequate livelihood.
Terry Spencer, 1998
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